‘Damascene moment’: Media in Zimbabwe shore up future

TellZim, a community newspaper in Zimbabwe, had long struggled to generate enough advertising revenue to keep the lights on and the printing presses rolling.

Two years ago, TellZim, which publishes a newspaper in Masvingo, Manicaland, Midlands and parts of Mashonaland East provinces, was generating a mere $100 per month through advertisements in their WhatsApp groups.

That changed in 2024 after TellZim became one of the six organisations to receive training under the Media Innovation Programme, a media viability initiative by IMS, implemented by IMS partner, Fojo Media Institute.

Fojo trained the organisations in audience research, marketing and digital strategies.

“The Media Innovation Programme opened our eyes to the strategic and innovative opportunities in which we could unlock revenue,” said Golden Maunganidze, director of TellZim. “This was a Damascene moment for us at TellZim. We understood our audience better, we were able to harness digital media better and engage in marketing, which helped us.”

After the training, TellZim offered to sell advertising opportunities to local schools, politicians and businesses. They increased their revenue to $1,000 in May 2024. At the end of August, they had further
increased it to $2,000 after adding two major businesses to their list of advertisers: national supermarket chains OK and Electrosales Pvt Ltd.

Fojo Media Institute received financial and technical support from IMS to implement the Media Innovation Programme.

Community radio gets ad boost

IMS partner Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS) successfully lobbied the national government, the Zimbabwe Media Commission and the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe
to allow community radio stations to run paid advertisements.

These not-for-profit stations struggled to cover the costs of their operations and by law were not permitted to run advertisements. The community radio stations are now allowed to run paid advertisements for four minutes every hour, following ZACRAS’ campaign for change.

This change has given the radio stations a financial boost and improved production and content distribution.

IMS contributed technical and financial support to both Fojo and ZACRAS.

Cash injection

— Kasambabezi and Twasumpuka set up marketing departments to solicit advertisements.

— Community radio station Madziwa FM invested in an internet package from Starlink.

— Ntepe Manama is now able to pay citizen journalists for their contributions.